Effect of dietary intervention on serum lignan levels in pregnant women - a controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mother's diet during pregnancy is important, since plant lignans and their metabolites, converted by the intestinal microflora to enterolignans, are proposed to possess multiple health benefits. Aim of our study was to investigate whether a dietary intervention affects lignan concentrations in the serum of pregnant women.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A controlled dietary intervention trial including 105 first-time pregnant women was conducted in three intervention and three control maternity health clinics. The intervention included individual counseling on diet and on physical activity, while the controls received conventional care. Blood samples were collected on gestation weeks 8-9 (baseline) and 36-37 (end of intervention). The serum levels of the plant lignans 7-hydroxymatairesinol, secoisolariciresinol, matairesinol, lariciresinol, cyclolariciresinol, and pinoresinol, and of the enterolignans 7-hydroxyenterolactone, enterodiol, and enterolactone, were measured using a validated method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The baseline levels of enterolactone, enterodiol and the sum of lignans were higher in the control group, whereas at the end of the trial their levels were higher in the intervention group. The adjusted mean differences between the baseline and end of the intervention for enterolactone and the total lignan intake were 1.6 ng/ml (p = 0.018, 95% CI 1.1-2.3) and 1.4 ng/mg (p = 0.08, 95% CI 1.0-1.9) higher in the intervention group than in the controls. Further adjustment for dietary components did not change these associations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The dietary intervention was successful in increasing the intake of lignan-rich food products, the fiber consumption and consequently the plasma levels of lignans in pregnant women.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p><b>ISRCTN21512277, <url>http://www.isrctn.org</url></b></p

A Social Sciences and Humanities research agenda for transport and mobility in Europe: key themes and 100 research questions

Transport and mobility systems need to be transformed to meet climate change goals and reduce negative environmental and social effects. Despite EU policies having targeted such problems for more than three decades, transitions have been slow and geographically uneven. For effective change to happen, transport and mobility research needs fresh perspectives and better integration of knowledge from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Based on a Horizon Scanning approach, which allowed for a great deal of openness and variety in scholarly viewpoints, this paper presents a novel research agenda consisting of 8 themes and 100 research questions that may contribute to achieving environmentally sustainable mobility transitions within Europe. This research agenda highlights the need to not only support technological solutions for low-carbon mobility, but the importance of transformative policies that include new processes of knowledge production, civic participation and epistemic justice. We contend that the agenda points to the need for further research on the dynamics of science-society interactions

Wintering grounds, population size and evolutionary history of a cryptic passerine species from isotopic and genetic data

Cryptic species pose a particular challenge to biologists in the context of life history investigations because of the difficulty in their field discrimination. Additionally, there is normally a lag in their widespread acceptance by the scientific community once they are formally recognised. These two factors might constrain our ability to properly assess the conservation status of the different species conforming a cryptic complex. In this study, we analysed isotopic and genetic data to shed light into the still unclear wintering grounds, population size and evolutionary history of the Iberian chiffchaff Phylloscopus ibericus, a species included within the common chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita until two decades ago due to their phenotypic similarity. We used molecular methods to identify spring-migrating Phylloscopus species captured in northern Iberia, and by comparing the Hydrogen isotopic ratios of their claw tips (δ2Hc; which would reflect the signatures of their wintering grounds), we detected that δ2Hc values of Iberian chiffchaffs were similar to willow warblers (Phylloscopus trochilus; a renowned trans-Saharan migrant), and higher than common chiffchaffs (mostly a pre-Saharan migrant). These results strongly support the idea that Iberian chiffchaffs winter in tropical Africa. We additionally reconstructed the phylogeny and evolutionary history of the Iberian chiffchaff's clade using mitochondrial and nuclear markers. Our results revealed relatively high values of nucleotide diversity (and, hence, high Ne) for the species that were greater than the values of the common/Iberian most recent common ancestor. This suggests that the Iberian chiffchaff did not experience strong bottlenecks after diverging from the common chiffchaff approximately one million years ago. Ultimately, our study provides another illustrative example of how isotopic and genetic analysis tools can help to enhance our understanding of avian ecology and evolution.Depto. de Biodiversidad, Ecología y EvoluciónFac. de Ciencias BiológicasTRUEpu

ConDeTri - A Content Dependent Read Trimmer for Illumina Data

During the last few years, DNA and RNA sequencing have started to play an increasingly important role in biological and medical applications, especially due to the greater amount of sequencing data yielded from the new sequencing machines and the enormous decrease in sequencing costs. Particularly, Illumina/Solexa sequencing has had an increasing impact on gathering data from model and non-model organisms. However, accurate and easy to use tools for quality filtering have not yet been established. We present ConDeTri, a method for content dependent read trimming for next generation sequencing data using quality scores of each individual base. The main focus of the method is to remove sequencing errors from reads so that sequencing reads can be standardized. Another aspect of the method is to incorporate read trimming in next-generation sequencing data processing and analysis pipelines. It can process single-end and paired-end sequence data of arbitrary length and it is independent from sequencing coverage and user interaction. ConDeTri is able to trim and remove reads with low quality scores to save computational time and memory usage during de novo assemblies. Low coverage or large genome sequencing projects will especially gain from trimming reads. The method can easily be incorporated into preprocessing and analysis pipelines for Illumina data

Advancing urban transitions and transformations research

Urban transitions and transformations research fosters a dialogue between sustainability transitions theory an inter- and transdisciplinary research on urban change. As a field, urban transitions and transformations research encompasses plural analytical and conceptual perspectives. In doing so, this field opens up sustainability transitions research to new communities of practice in urban environments, including mayors, transnational municipal networks, and international organizations

Avian W and mammalian Y chromosomes convergently retained dosage-sensitive regulators

After birds diverged from mammals, different ancestral autosomes evolved into sex chromosomes in each lineage. In birds, females are ZW and males are ZZ, but in mammals females are XX and males are XY. We sequenced the chicken W chromosome, compared its gene content with our reconstruction of the ancestral autosomes, and followed the evolutionary trajectory of ancestral W-linked genes across birds. Avian W chromosomes evolved in parallel with mammalian Y chromosomes, preserving ancestral genes through selection to maintain the dosage of broadly expressed regulators of key cellular processes. We propose that, like the human Y chromosome, the chicken W chromosome is essential for embryonic viability of the heterogametic sex. Unlike other sequenced sex chromosomes, the chicken W chromosome did not acquire and amplify genes specifically expressed in reproductive tissues. We speculate that the pressures that drive the acquisition of reproduction-related genes on sex chromosomes may be specific to the male germ line

Evaluation of Different Recruitment Methods: Longitudinal, Web-Based, Pan-European Physical Activity Through Sustainable Transport Approaches (PASTA) Project

BACKGROUND: Sufficient sample size and minimal sample bias are core requirements for empirical data analyses. Combining opportunistic recruitment with a Web-based survey and data-collection platform yields new benefits over traditional recruitment approaches. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to report the success of different recruitment methods and obtain data on participants' characteristics, participation behavior, recruitment rates, and representativeness of the sample. METHODS: A longitudinal, Web-based survey was implemented as part of the European PASTA (Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport Approaches) project, between November 2014 and December 2016. During this period, participants were recruited from 7 European cities on a rolling basis. A standardized guide on recruitment strategy was developed for all cities, to reach a sufficient number of adult participants. To make use of the strengths and minimize weakness, a combination of different opportunistic recruitment methods was applied. In addition, the random sampling approach was applied in the city of Örebro. To reduce the attrition rate and improve real-time monitoring, the Web-based platform featured a participant's and a researchers' user interface and dashboard. RESULTS: Overall, 10,691 participants were recruited; most people found out about the survey through their workplace or employer (2300/10691, 21.51%), outreach promotion (2219/10691, 20.76%), and social media (1859/10691, 17.39%). The average number of questionnaires filled in per participant varied significantly between the cities (P<.001), with the highest number in Zurich (11.0, SE 0.33) and the lowest in Örebro (4.8, SE 0.17). Collaboration with local organizations, the use of Facebook and mailing lists, and direct street recruitment were the most effective approaches in reaching a high share of participants (P<.001). Considering the invested working hours, Facebook was one of the most time-efficient methods. Compared with the cities' census data, the composition of study participants was broadly representative in terms of gender distribution; however, the study included younger and better-educated participants. CONCLUSIONS: We observed that offering a mixed recruitment approach was highly effective in achieving a high participation rate. The highest attrition rate and the lowest average number of questionnaires filled in per participant were observed in Örebro, which also recruited participants through random sampling. These findings suggest that people who are more interested in the topic are more willing to participate and stay in a survey than those who are selected randomly and may not have a strong connection to the research topic. Although direct face-to-face contacts were very effective with respect to the number of recruited participants, recruiting people through social media was not only effective but also very time efficient. The collected data are based on one of the largest recruited longitudinal samples with a common recruitment strategy in different European cities

The genome of the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata, and variation in the Guanapo population

For over a century, the live bearing guppy, Poecilia reticulata, has been used to study sexual selection as well as local adaptation. Natural guppy populations differ in many traits that are of intuitively adaptive significance such as ornamentation, age at maturity, brood size and body shape. Water depth, light supply, food resources and predation regime shape these traits, and barrier waterfalls often separate contrasting environments in the same river. We have assembled and annotated the genome of an inbred single female from a high-preda- tion site in the Guanapo drainage. The final assembly comprises 731.6 Mb with a scaffold N50 of 5.3 MB. Scaffolds were mapped to linkage groups, placing 95% of the genome assembly on the 22 autosomes and the X-chromosome. To investigate genetic variation in the population used for the genome assembly, we sequenced 10 wild caught male individu- als. The identified 5 million SNPs correspond to an average nucleotide diversity (π) of 0.0025. The genome assembly and SNP map provide a rich resource for investigating adap- tation to different predation regimes. In addition, comparisons with the genomes of other Poeciliid species, which differ greatly in mechanisms of sex determination and maternal resource allocation, as well as comparisons to other teleost genera can begin to reveal how live bearing evolved in teleost fish